International Development

Canada Can Do More and Better For Democracy Promotion Abroad. As the long-awaited international policy review has yet again been delayed, a new study by the IRPP concludes that Canadians should have a forum to debate whether they want to invest in a renewed and enhanced role in democratic assistance. The study notes that Canada's endeavours in democracy assistance, while remaining quite limited, have earned international appreciation. "Canada presents a non-threatening moderate face to the world, and, as a pluralist, federalist, multicultural ethnically and linguistically diverse country, offers potentially useful experience on the democratic accommodation of differences," says author Gerald J. Schmitz.

Advancing Democracy Abroad: A Proposal to Create the Democracy Canada Institute. says that Canada?s expertise in democracy promotion has yet to be harnessed to its full potential. ?Canada has many fine democracy assistance programs, governmental and nongovernmental, but a consensus has emerged that there is a lack of coordination and policy coherence that makes the sum of Canada?s international democracy efforts less than the total of its parts,? say Thomas S. Axworthy and Leslie Campbell.

International Assistance to Democratic Development: A Review. The promotion of democracy has become an increasingly important part of new global aid strategies undertaken by established democracies since the end of the Cold War. But significant reforms are needed to make it more effective, says George Perlin in a working paper entitled ?International Assistance to Democratic Development: A Review? published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy

Trade as Aid. The Canadian government has proposed removing all duties and quotas on imports from least developed countries, which now face astonishingly high tariffs on their key exports such as textiles and apparel. Ottawa?s proposal is good policy: increases in exports spur development and reduce poverty, particularly among women. The removal of tariffs and quotas is likely to reduce poverty in a number of the poorest Asian countries, send a largely symbolic message to the poorest African countries and perhaps improve their living standards in the longer term, and lead to lower prices and a more productive economy for Canadians. In short, in giving aid through trade, Canadians and the world's poor alike will benefit from this small step along a longer-term path of opening Canada's markets to all developing countries. "Trade as Aid: Freeing Access to Canada's Markets for the World's Poor" by Danielle Goldfarb is published by the C.D. Howe Institute.